Paul Dunmall

[Hot Ptah]

I have liked what I have heard from Paul Dunmall. What are his best recordings?

[.:.impossible]

The first Dunmall that was recommended to me was 'Birdman'.

Dunmall, Tippett, Rogers, Levin. Mujician.

Recorded in 1995.

[king ubu]

I only have his hatOLOGY disc, "Ghostly Thoughts", but there are some posts about him in the funny rat thread, you may try a search there!

[relyles]

This morning I was listening to The Great Divide by Dunmall's cctet, which I borrrowed from the public library. Although I have heard and enjoyed several radio broadcasts and other live recordings featuring Dunmall this is the first "official" release by Dunmall that I have heard. He has a fairly decent sized discography listed on his website, including many which I believe are self released. I have not followed the funny rat thread and don't have the time to sift through it looking for comments about Dunmall. Is there a way to do a search and only pull up the specific posts where Dunmall is mentioned?

Anyway, if anyone has any additional recommendations or thoughts on Dunmall, I am very interested in digging digging into his discography.

[7/4]

Is there a way to do a search and only pull up the specific posts where Dunmall is mentioned?

Try the board search engine.

.

[blake]

Anyway, if anyone has any additional recommendations or thoughts on Dunmall, I am very interested in digging digging into his discography.

The two Mujician discs are very good, Ghostly Thoughts (Hat) too (especially for Phil Gibbs' guitar work). Start there, though GT is way OOP and potentially difficult or expensive to locate.

There are several Dunmall threads over on Jazzcorner, I'm sure a search will turn those up. Here's one with some good info:

Dunmall recs on Jazzcorner

Did anyone catch the Dunmall/Grimes/Cyrille show at Vision Fest? ... Maybe Mark Sheldon? ... would've liked to have seen that show.

[sidewinder]

I saw him live with Keith Tippett and 'Mujician' a few years ago - and before that back in the 1980s with a local band called Spirit Level led by Tim Richards. That band were one of the best in the UK at that time.

[relyles]

Is there a way to do a search and only pull up the specific posts where Dunmall is mentioned?

Try the board search engine.

.

I had never noticed the "show results as posts" option before. Good to keep in mind for future investigations.

[clifford_thornton]

I have a more recent Mujician on Cuneiform that's decent. I think his playing is more than good, but for whatever reason I haven't been compelled to go further.

[Alexander Hawkins]

He was with the London Jazz Composers Orchestra for a while...can't think offhand, but he must be on some nice things on Intakt from the 80s with that band as a result!

BTW - little known fact, maybe? Not sure! - he also played with Alice Coltrane in the early 80s (although only briefly, I believe).

Edited August 21, 2008 by Red

[ourmanin]

There is some very good early Dunmall on the Spirit Level album 'Mice In The Wallet'

He is a discreet man but an excellent player, his work with Tippett is outstanding.

[A Lark Ascending]

There's a very different Dunmall on at least one of Danny Thompson's 'Whatever' albums - inside playing, very folksy.

[Alexander Hawkins]

Bev - interesting - I had no idea Dunmall did that!

Paul's definitely one to add to the list of jazz bagpipe virtuosi

[A Lark Ascending]

Paul Dunmall gets mentioned frequently in various threads but doesn't seem to have had much comment in his own thread. There are two that the search engine pull up so I've gone for the slightly longer one.

I've known Dunmall's music since the early 80s when I saw him with Spirit Level and then bumped into him on and off over the years, especially with the Mujician recordings (and one extraordinary performance at Bath).

Over the last year I've found myself listening to him a lot, largely because he's made many of his DUNS recordings freely available in a couple of places (try Youtube). At least that's how I understand it.

He's usually praised for his power and prodigious technique. But what I've found myself drawn to is the enormous range of his approaches. There's a lot of music of incredible delicacy and some that seems to come from strong spiritual beliefs (not my outlook on life at all but the music that comes out of it is very engaging).

Given his catalogue is immense, wondered if people had some favourites (to add to the above). Individual recordings with a few words about why preferred over lists.

Edited June 13, 2015 by A Lark Ascending

[Clunky]

I'm all ears as the only Dunmall I have is 'Birdman' mentioned above. In my collection that puts him on a par with Pharoah Sanders.( yes I only have one by him too).

[A Lark Ascending]

Short but interesting interview from 2000 here:

http://www.mindyourownmusic.co.uk/paul-dunmall-interview.htm

Explains where the 'spiritual' side came from.

[Д.Д.]

I am not a fan, I find his playing tedious and predictable (and that's on tenor, on soprano it's godawful), but I can wholeheartedly recommend this one:

John Law "Extremely Quartet" on Hat - Law, Moholo, Burry Guy and Dunmall. This one is long OOP, unfortunately.

"Ghostly Thoughts" is also very good, but mostly due to fascinating interplay of Mark Sanders and John Adams. The CD is OOP, but it's available on Spotify.

Edited June 14, 2015 by Д.Д.

[A Lark Ascending]

I really like this one:

Probably not for those who prefer their free jazz paint stripping. He talks in the article I mentioned above about time spent with a spiritual group ultimately ending up working with Alice Coltrane at one point. That gives the reference to this.

Can be heard here:

[mjazzg]

I've a stack of Dunmall Cds and I've not been disappointed by any. There's great variety in his catalogue and as Bev's post suggested it's far from all paint-stripping. In fact I'd go as far to say that little of it is

The Mujician's are uniformly marvellous, the two Hat Arts are also very fine but quite difficult to track down these days. I'm very fond of the band he had with Kevin Norton that recorded on CIMP.

There's so many of the Duns that I find it hard to get a grip on that part of the catalogue. A more recent sextet 'Mumuksuta' features Neil Metcalfe's flute to great effect and could be said to have elements of the 'spiritual' I guess

Edited June 14, 2015 by mjazzg

[xybert]

One of many, many artists that i've never really gotten in to but need to explore further. I used to have Bridging (The Great Divide Live) on clean feed and thought it was good. This, though, was around the time where my modus operandi was to cover as much ground as possible by buying just one album by an artist. I then felt like, on my limited budget, i'd ticked the box of having heard them and having them featured in my collection. Of course if an album particularly grabbed me i'd investigate further. Now i realise that with certain artists i need to immerse myself in order to really get a grip on their music and i reckon that Dunmall is one of those guys for me. Sometimes dipping a toe is effectively pointless for me, may as well not bother until i'm ready to at least get a few albums and go from there.

Edited June 14, 2015 by xybert

[Leeway]

I like Dunmall, and consider myself a fan, so maybe I can be permitted to say that he may be too prolific for his own good. There seems an endless stream of Dunmall discs, and it is often hard to distinguish one from another. Granted many are good, but few are great.

I am also likely in the minority when I say that I really enjoy those albums he plays bagpipes on; the pipes seem to energize Dunmall, and they add wonderful shades of color and sound.

Having said that, when I put on a Dunmall disc, it's rare that I don't enjoy it. That is saying something.

[mjazzg]

I like Dunmall, and consider myself a fan, so maybe I can be permitted to say that he may be too prolific for his own good. There seems an endless stream of Dunmall discs, and it is often hard to distinguish one from another. Granted many are good, but few are great.

I am also likely in the minority when I say that I really enjoy those albums he plays bagpipes on; the pipes seem to energize Dunmall, and they add wonderful shades of color and sound.

Having said that, when I put on a Dunmall disc, it's rare that I don't enjoy it. That is saying something.

Anyone with the Duns box can certainly call themselves a fan

I'm with you on the over-recording and the bagpipes too (as is A Lark Ascending, I'm pretty sure, so we're a minority of three at least). One of the best live Dunmall experiences was a duo with Mark Sanders where the pipes figured prominently

Edited June 15, 2015 by mjazzg

[A Lark Ascending]

I really like the bagpipes. But that might be because my listening context involves a lot of British folk music - Scottish, Irish, Northumbrian - and, to a lesser extent, European folk music where bagpipes feature. I love hearing his completely different way of using them.

Talking of contexts, he did a marvellous record with Scottish concertina player Simon Thoumire. Last year I was at a small concert with melodeon god, Andy Cutting, who was extolling Thoumire's virtues and willingness to play in all sorts of contexts outside the folk world. But, he warned us, steer clear of the 'free jazz' record he made. It's awful!

Dunmall has recorded a huge amount - whether that is any more over-recording than Evan Parker or Anthony Braxton, I'm not sure. Putting out zillions of discs seems to be a particular thing with free jazz (well it was until bands in every genre realised they could put out every concert they'd ever played as a CD!). I've always assumed it's because they see themselves documenting the in-the-moment music rather than trying to make definitive statements. Makes it hard to get a grip on the musician in overview but you can just dip in here and there.

[johnblitweiler]

[colinmce]

I haven't been able to get into this one. Something about it grates on me. I don't like the bad sound, for one, or the pervasive audience noise. But I also just don't hear Dunamll click with the Americans. The ones I've heard that I really like are the Mujicians, Ghostly Thoughts, Babu Trio & Sextet on SLAM, Remembrance with Elton Dean, Deep Joy on DUNS, and the duos with Tony Bianco.